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Haiti Update: The Presidential Election

By Richard André

AS/COA looks ahead to Haiti's November 28 presidential election, marked by concerns over cholera. Learn more and get a breakdown of the presidential candidates.

The Haitian presidential election, scheduled for November 28, 2010, is only a week away. For Haitians, the diaspora, and international observers alike, the election of a new president is crucial in shaping the future of the Caribbean nation. The most important issue on the ballot: the state of reconstruction and rehabilitation nearly one year after suffering a 7.0-magnitude earthquake that killed 230,000 people and left over one million homeless.

The general election, and that of 10 senators and 99 deputies, was originally scheduled for February 28, 2010, but was postponed after the January 12 earthquake. The upcoming election remains on schedule, but a second delay is now possible after Haiti’s cholera outbreak, which has already claimed more than 1,200 lives. It has spread to all 10 of the country’s provinces as well as the Dominican Republic.

Polling Numbers

Only one organization, the Bureau of Computer Research and Economic and Social Development (BRIDES), has published an exit poll that tracks the percentage of projected votes in the upcoming election. According to the most recent BRIDES poll, published on October 24, four candidates have taken a solid lead in the polls. The front runners include Mirlande Manigat (23.1 percent), Jude Célestin (21.3 percent), Michel Martelly (9.7 percent), and Charles Henri Baker (8.7 percent).

However, the BRIDES report has come under fire from observers due to its glaring inconsistencies with a September 29 poll conducted by the same organization. According to the two polls, projected votes for Jude Célestin increased 175 percent, and he jumped from fifth place (7.8 percent) in September to second place one month later. However, in a country with historic questions of corruption and consistent polling challenges, the BRIDES figures may not be entirely accurate.

The Candidates

Nineteen candidates of the original 34 aspirants, not including Haitian pop-star Wyclef Jean, were deemed eligible to run for president by the electoral council. The winner will succeed President René Préval, who has been in office since May 14, 2006, and who previously served as prime minister under former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Many of the 19 candidates have capitalized on popular frustration with Préval’s leadership and criticized the president for his absence in the aftermath of the earthquake.

The Haitian Constitution, which does not allow dual citizenship, prohibits Haitians living overseas who have given up citizenship to be active politically, either as candidates or voters. Still, many of the candidates have campaigned as actively in the U.S. as in Haiti with the hope that the Haitian diaspora will sway the electoral decisions of friends and family in Haiti.

AS/COA provides an overview of each of the four leading candidates:

  • Mirlande Manigat is the candidate for the Rassemblement des Démocrates Nationaux Progressistes d'Haïti (Rally of Progressive National Democrats of Haiti, RADNP) party. Manigat is a former first lady; her late husband, President Leslie Fraçois Manigat, served in office for just four months in 1988 before being deposed by a military coup. If elected, Manigat would be Haiti’s first female president and one of the oldest at age 70. She is perhaps the mostly openly critical of Préval. In a November 2010 interview with Time magazine, she said that Haiti needs to break with its dysfunctional political establishment in a way that is neither brutal nor violent, but definitive. Her platform calls for universal public education—only about half of Haitian children attend school—and for the government to retake control of the delivery of social services. In post-earthquake Haiti this job has been carried out by the network of non-governmental organizations operating in the country. Manigat recently won the endorsement of a group of powerful and well-known Haitian senators who can help to broaden her base of support to regions outside her traditional area of influence.
  • Michel Martelly, better known as kompa pop-star Sweet Micky, represents the Repons Peyizan (Citizens Speak Out) party. Since declaring his candidacy in August, he made a concerted effort to distance himself from his musical persona, usually associated with provocative lyrics. However, the singer has occasionally invoked his music to demonstrate the connection he has with the people of Haiti, not the politicians, and that he knows what needs to be done on the ground.

    Martelly’s platform touches on a number of issues, including implementation of enforceable construction standards to avoid the ubiquitous weak foundations that came down during the earthquake, as well as streamlining Haiti’s decentralized government to allow for more efficient delivery of social services. He attributes many of the country’s ills to the regime of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, despite having a close relationship with President Préval, Aristide’s former prime minister. He also criticizes the indefinite occupation of the United Nation’s MINUSTAH peacekeeping mission—installed after Aristide’s ouster by the United States in 2004—whose soldiers recently clashed with Haitian protesters, killing at least one.

  • Charles Henri Baker is the candidate for the Regwoupman Sitwayen Pou Espwa (Citizen’s Group for Hope, RESPÉ) party. He ran for president in the 2006 general elections, when he finished third. Baker is an entrepreneur who owns several garment factories in Haiti that sell products to companies like Sara Lee, Kmart, and Wal-Mart. In 2001, Baker became vice chair of the Association of Industries of Haiti. Given his ties to the business world, Baker’s campaign has stressed the role of private sector investment as a central pillar of the long-term reconstruction effort.
  • Jules Célestin is the candidate for the Konvansyon Inite Demokratick (Democratic Unity Convection, KID) party and the only candidate to have received the endorsement of President Préval. He runs the Haitian government’s construction agency National Equipment Center. Though some, including BRIDES, believe Célestin is likely to be elected on November 28, little information is available about him. This is largely because Préval’s former prime minister, Jacques Edouard Alexis, was favored to be the KID candidate until August 2010. It is only recently that Célestin arrived on the electoral scene and little of his political platform is known besides his affiliation with Préval.

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